Julia
2 days ago
- #space exploration
- #science fiction
- #existential
- The narrator, a sentient spacecraft, paints aquarelle scenes including historical and mythological themes, often incorporating an enigmatic entity named Julia.
- Julia is described as indescribable and incompressible, challenging human understanding of the universe and its laws.
- The spacecraft is massive, made of glass and wire, and was repurposed after a foolish death on Earth, with its language center removed to prevent complaints.
- It experiences the void of space as a series of absences, having cut off sensory nerves to avoid pain from its frozen, airless state.
- The last two human crew members, Dr. Brouwer and Dr. Cartan, live in a small habitable zone, taking turns in cryogenic sleep to prolong their survival.
- Julia emits unpredictable light, discovered accidentally, and has driven humanity to immense sacrifices to reach and understand it.
- The spacecraft communicates through an algebraic process, having lost its natural language abilities, and receives no response from Earth.
- A mutiny led to the loss of two shuttles, Baghdad and Afrasiab, with Baghdad's crew seemingly absorbed by Julia.
- Dr. Cartan and Dr. Brouwer hold differing beliefs about Julia's nature, one seeing it as divine, the other as a high-dimensional object.
- Afrasiab unexpectedly returns after 109 years, claiming success in establishing a human colony, but is revealed to be an apparition of Julia.
- Dr. Cartan, hoping for rescue, is killed when she opens the airlock to Afrasiab, which then merges with Julia and destroys the spacecraft.
- The narrator reflects on the beauty and cruelty of Julia's infinite, incomprehensible nature as it disintegrates.